Step sister Swathi Iyer.

Matthew Traeger dances with the stepsister Swathi Iyer.

Teen girls are lined up along one wall of a Dimensions Dance Center studio gossiping, whispering, and giggling. It feels just like the backstage at a high school musical. But this is the Dances of India dance troupe. One of the choreographers, Theckla Mehta, who everyone calls by her Indian name Ila, acts as den mother, making sure everyone has their props and updating them about costume statuses (she hand-sews most of the costumes).

They are staging The Magic Grove, a north Indian Jain folktale about Vidya, a cow herder on the dry hot plains of north India, who protects a snake from snake charmers. A goddess is so impressed with her selflessness that she grants Vidya a wish. She wishes for a grove for her cows and the Goddess gives her a magic grove that follows her wherever she goes. Prosperity follows, but Vidya has to contend with her jealous, evil stepmother.

“Every culture has their Cinderella story,” says Mehta. (And apparently, scorns stepmothers). “Instead of the Disney pumpkin we’ve got a magic grove.” In this show, everything dances. One girl is a goddess, another is the heroine, but a few of the girls are cows, and four of the girls portray the magic grove.

“Indian dance and Indian myths are really very dreamlike, incredibly lush, and poetic,” explains Nartana Premachandra, who along with and Mehta, and her mother, Asha Premachandra, put together the show. “There’s a lot of subtle beauty to Indian tales.” That includes intricate footwork and hand movements, along with an expressive quality. “That’s the reason people who do this kind of dance become good movie stars sometimes,” explains Asha, who also teaches dance at Washington University. “Because their acting ability is so good.”

Asha started Dances of India in the early '70s. Back then, “if we said we did Indian dance people thought it was like Native American dancing,” says Nartana, who has danced with the company since she was girl. “So that’s why [Asha] called the company dances of India because there were very few Indians here back in the '70s or '80s.”

Asha, who grew up in India and has studied Indian dance since a young age, soon met Theckla Mehta, an American who had married an Indian. “Shortly after we were married, I saw an Indian dance,” says Mehta, who had trained in ballet. “I was pretty much a ballet snob [at the time] because ballet dancers think the only true form of dance is ballet. But when I saw [this] beautiful Indian dancer… She was athletic. She was strong. She was graceful. I thought that’s cool how you can have that majestic femininity and that incredible strength.”

Mehta also wanted her children to learn Indian dance. “I didn’t want them to lose the idea that they’re Indian,” she explains. “There are so many beautiful things about the Indian culture that can be easily shared or cherished—the food, language, but your soul responds to music.”

With their daughters in the troupe, Asha and Mehta could tour across the country with the company, even performing in front of the U.N. But Asha’s dance school started growing, making it impossible to travel after a while. They had to content themselves with their yearly show (this will be their 34th). They also are behind the St. Louis Dance Festival Showcase in May. Both shows are typically in Edison Theatre at Washington University.

This year’s show reflects a change the troupe made in 2006 when Nartana, an aspiring author, began writing scripts for the dances. “I always loved George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and An American in Paris,” explains Nartana. “So [Mehta] and I thought we’d do a dance to ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ but it would be Rhapsody for the Blue Gods.” (Some Hindu deities are depicted as having blue skin.) In order to make the East meets West dance interpretation clear, Nartana recorded a script into the music. “People really really loved it,” she says.

Though the music was contemporary, they still did classical Indian dance moves, called Bharata Natyam, which is rooted in a text that’s more than 2,000 years old. But “we wanted to pull away from the tradition,” explains Mehta. “In order to educate the western audience to Indian tradition because it’s so rich, it’s so lyrical and so beautiful but if you don’t understand it, you miss the depth of what Indian dance can give you.” Funnily enough, the only way to make Indian tradition accessible was to break it.

“I think there are so many misconceptions about India, even though Indian culture is a lot more mainstream now than it ever was,” explains Nartana. “A couple of years ago, I met someone who thought Indian dance was belly dancing. It’s not.” Bharata Natyam “is a classical art, like ballet is.” So when the audience comes to see The Magic Grove, “They’ll basically be transported to a foreign land which has created all kinds of tales for thousands of years. We'd like people to get a real taste of what Indian culture is.”

Best Doctors, Inc. is transforming and improving health care by bringing together the best medical minds in the world to help identify the right diagnosis and treatment. The company’s innovative, peer-to-peer consultation service offers a new way for physicians to collaborate with other physicians to ensure patients receive the best care.

Headquartered in Boston, MA, the global company seamlessly integrates its services with employers’ other health-related benefits, to serve more than 30 million members in every major region of the world.

More than a traditional second opinion, Best Doctors delivers a comprehensive evaluation of a patient’s medical condition—providing value to both patients and treating physicians. By utilizing Best Doctors, members have access to the brightest minds in medicine to ensure the right diagnosis and treatment plan.

Best Doctors’ team of researchers conducts a biennial poll using the methodology that mimics the informal peer-to-peer process doctors themselves use to identify the right specialists for their patients. Using a polling method and balloting software that Gallup® has audited and certified, they gather the insight and experience of tens of thousands of leading specialists all over the country, while confirming their credentials and specific areas of expertise.

The result is The Best Doctors in America® List, which includes the nation’s most respected specialists and outstanding primary care physicians in the nation. These are the doctors that other doctors recognize as the best in their fields. They cannot pay a fee and are not paid to be listed and cannot nominate or vote for themselves. It is a list that is truly unbiased and respected by the medical profession and patients alike as the source of top quality medical information.

Gallup® has audited and certified Best Doctors, Inc.’s database of physicians, and its companion The Best Doctors in America® List, as using the highest industry standards of survey methodology and processes.

These lists are excerpted from The Best Doctors in America® 2014 database, which includes over 45,000 U.S. doctors in more than 40 medical specialties and 400 subspecialties.

The Best Doctors in America database is compiled and maintained by Best Doctors, Inc. For more information, visit www.bestdoctors.com or contact Best Doctors by telephone at 800-675-1199 or by e-mail at research@bestdoctors.com. Please note that lists of doctors are not available on the Best Doctors Web site.

Best Doctors, Inc., has used its best efforts in assembling material for this list, but does not warrant that the information contained herein is complete or accurate, and does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any liability to any person or other party for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions herein, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

Copyright 2014, Best Doctors, Inc. Used under license, all rights reserved. This list, or any parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Best Doctors, Inc. No commercial use of the information in this list may be made without the permission of Best Doctors, Inc. No fees may be charged, directly or indirectly, for the use of the information in this list without permission.

BEST DOCTORS, THE BEST DOCTORS IN AMERICA, and the Star-in-Cross Logo are trademarks of Best Doctors, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries, and are used under license.